It's a lonely job, working the phones at a college rape crisis center. Day after day, you wait for the casualties to show up from the alleged campus rape epidemic -- but no one calls. Could this mean that the crisis is overblown? No. It means, according to campus sexual-assault organizations, that the abuse of coeds is worse than anyone had ever imagined. It means that consultants and counselors need more funding to persuade student rape victims to break the silence of their suffering.

Several explanations have been forwarded to account for sexual coercion in romantic relationships. Feminist theory states that sexual coercion is the result of male dominance over women and the need to maintain that dominance; however, studies showing that women sexually coerce men point towards weaknesses in that theory. Some researchers have, therefore, suggested that it is the extent to which people view the other gender as hostile that influences theserates.

Taggar:

We investigated men's experience with unwanted sexual activity—including unwanted kissing, petting, or intercourse—engaged in because of physical or psychological pressure or from societal expectations about male sexuality. We developed a questionnaire asking if respondents had ever engaged in unwanted sexual activity for any of 51 reasons. This questionnaire was administered to 507 men and 486 women. More women (97.5%) than men (93.5%) had experienced unwanted sexual activity; more men (62.7%) than women (46.3%) had experienced unwanted intercourse.

It is typically assumed that acquaintance rape and other forms of unwanted sexual contact among adults involve male perpetrators (instigators) and female victims (recipients). In fact, until 1992 the Federal Bureau of Investigation defined rape as "carnal knowledge of a female forcibly and without her consent" (FBI, 1996). Additionally, many studies have documented the high percentage of young women who experience sexual coercion or force in dating situations (Koss, Gidycz, & Wisnieswski, 1987; Abbey, 1991).